THE MYSTERY OF THE CROSS

HAT
other objection is alleged by our adversaries? This; that (to take the
preferable view ) it was altogether needless that that transcendent
Being should submit to the experience of death, but He might
independently of this, through the superabundance of His power, have
wrought with ease His purpose; still, if for some ineffable reason or
other it was absolutely necessary that so it should be, at least He
ought not to have been subjected to the contumely of such an
ignominious kind of death. What death, they ask, could be more
ignominious than that by crucifixion? What answer can we make to this?
Why, that the death is rendered necessary by the birth, and that He
Who had determined once for all to share the nature of man must pass
through all the peculiar conditions of that nature.